CV Science

Eric VIVES PhD Chemical synthesis and biological evaluations of the HIV1 Tat protein

Course and current status

Academic Degrees

2006 : Habilitation à Diriger les Recherches (HDR), University of Montpellier, France.

1988-1992 : Ph.D. in Chemistry on the « Chemical synthesis and Biological Evaluation of the HIV1 Tat Protein » at the “North Faculty of Medecine »  in Marseille, France.

 Appointments

Since 2021 : Researcher at the INSERM Team N°4, "Development of the visceral smooth muscle and Associated Pathologies". Physiology and Experimental Biology of Heart and Muscles (PhyMedExp), INSERM U1046, CNRS UMR 9214 CNRS, University of Montpellier.

2014-2020 : Researcher at the Research Center for Molecular and cellular Biology (CRBM), Assistant Professor at the University of Montpellier. Director: Dr A. Debant. Studies on the « Development of New Cell-PenetratingPeptides for the Delivery of Nucleic Acids».

2004-2014 : Researcher at the Cancer Research Institute of Montpellier (IRCM), Assistant Professor at the University of Montpellier. Director: Pr. André Pèlegrin. Studies on the « Development of Targeting-Peptides for the Specific Delivery of Antitumoral Drugs».

1995 - 2004 : Researcher at the Molecular Genetic Institute of Montpellier (IGMM), Assistant Professor at the University of Montpellier. Director: Pr. Bernard Lebleu. Studies on the « Tat peptide-mediated delivery of nucleic-acids  and studies about the mechanism of cell entry».

From 1997 : Permanent Assistant Professor at the University of Montpellier, France.

1995-1997 : Temporary Assistant Professor at the University of Montpellier, France. Director: Pr. Bernard Lebleu. Studies on the « Tat peptide-mediated delivery of nucleic-acids »

1993-1994: Post-doctoral position at University of Oxford (UK), in the « Virus Molecular Biology Group » headed by Suzan and Alan Kingsman about « the purification and characterisation of a cellular protein antagonist of the binding of the Tat protein ».

Scientific summary

Eric Vivès has been working on the synthetic HIV-1 Tat protein for many years and originally performed in 1997 the full structure-activity relationship study which highlighted the cationic region of the protein to be responsible for the cellular translocation property. This Tat peptide has been then exploited worldwide for the cellular delivery of hundreds of different molecules (proteins, peptides, nucleic acids, liposomes, nanoparticles…). Later in 2003, he further investigated the mechanism of cell entry of this peptide and discovered that artifactual fixation conditions altered the pattern of the experimental data previously presented for this category of cell-penetrating peptides. Both works have been published in Journal of Biological Chemistry and have been numerously cited. He oriented recently his research in the design of original cancer cell-targeting peptides in order to deliver any devices loaded with drugs or pharmaceutical molecules specifically to the tumour cells. Along this line, inspired by the reference cell-targeting peptide developed by the Kessler’s group, namely the c(RGDfNMeV), he conceived a cyclisation procedure leading to the formation of a tetracyclopeptide c(RGDK) closed with an original urea bond between the alpha-amino group of the peptide and the epsilon amino group of the ring-closing amino acid. He is now involved in the design of peptide able to form stable nanoparticules with various kinds of nucleic acids (siRNAs, plasmids, mRNAs).